pouët.net

The scene is in URGENT need for hugging.

And when it comes to this culture war, the scene is in urgent need of some moderate people to mediate. If we had a major demo party right now where most active sceners are present, then I'd highly recommend to have a moderated and mediated discussion on the subject on stage. The "fishbowl" format would be perfect for that.

Ok, let me clarify, I mean "you really need to stop doing this", not "take a day off, you look stressed".

Because as it stands, for all your moral high ground let's try to unify this act, you're clearly just lashing out at one side.

Which is not much of a surprise given that I have very strong feelings and opinions on the subject.

As we've discussed privately, it's often helpful to understand that in the end probably most of us agree on the goals, but mostly disagree on how to achieve them.

Then I would recommend taking a step back from the strong feelings and looking at the reality of what's happening _right now_. Check the oneliner. There's only one side, nay, one person insulting and ridiculing people left and right at the moment, and if you love the scene as much as you say to do - do you really think _I_ am the one where it's most important to argue against?

kb: Also, as you know, I am suffering from a bipolar disorder. It's normal that I am lashing out and half an hour later realize that I actually don't want anyone hurt. See yesterday.

Which brings us to the subject that we are right now all doing this via a suboptimal text medium. Nobody knows if the person you are just lashing out right now is in a terrible situation, easily hurt or not and stable enough for this subject.

From the feedback I have received A LOT of sceners right now are absolutely not ready for this kind of culture war. They need hugging and feeling safe, welcome and included in their community, no matter what opinions they might have on things.

I am not on high moral grounds. But I am able to reflect on myself to understand I am part of the problem, and there are quite a bunch of people right now who should do the same.

Scene would need a hug but just dont touch me physically plz :-D

here is an unpopular opinion about the scene for you:
just because you can use all the colors, it doesn't really mean you always should.

I'll counter you with another unpopular opinion: monochrome demos and minimalism are just lazy design.

oh yeah? well, something something rude about demos made in BASIC :D

Pay the creator to commission the demos you wanna see. Generously.

Hey hey, I'm just talking about lazy design here! Leave lazy coding out of this.

visibility of new demos is too short lived. pouets all time top is stuck in the past. how about a recommendation system?

I see many ways that could lead to scene drama, "hey, our demo is great but you didn't recommend it, wtf!?"

hej our demos are great, why didnt you thumb it, wtf?

Minimalism and monochrome are ways to exclude aspects I cannot handle. Highly recommended! It's really hard to manage lots of components, so don't use more than you can handle. Good Amiga tracker musicians started to make uncontrolled chaotic crap when they got FastTracker II and more channels. The moped got out of hand, as we say in Finland.

Or then again, don't care about critics and their thumbs. It's a lot more fun if you do it for fun!

Second Reality and fr-08 are weak choices to get people interested in the demoscene today.

House at the Mountains by BITS is a masterpiece of design.

@El Topo, no need to wtf, I was thinking about web tech primarily, thinking of sth like the youtube recommendation system. automated stuff. helpful to discover demos you might have overlooked. I don't follow all parties closely, and if I miss something while it's in the top of the month list, I might never become aware of some gems.

so my unpopular opinion there is "if a demo doesn't win a major party, it will probably not get the attention it deserves, because we're stuck in the past century with our platforms"

Non-executable prods, especially those created with modern hardware or software, would probably have more fair and appropriate competition in a mainstream context outside of the traditional demoparty.

But on the flip side, newbie sceners shouldn't be made to feel stigma for using engines or tools like Unity, Unreal, Pico8, DOSBox, Processing, etc.

@DrClaw not that unreasonable a suggestion. if you fit these into brutal semoscenish constraints, all good. like the tic80 compos, resembling shader showdown.

@jco: Ok, this could work but the popularity algo seems a bit broken at the moment?

i'm offended.